Our View: Sandy Hook Promise is about protecting children

In the weeks following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, a group of Newtown residents created the nonprofit organization called The Sandy Hook Promise.

The goal for the group was to assist their community heal and prevent the causes of gun violence by focusing attention on issues such as mental wellness, community connectedness and gun safety.

Since that time, three parents who lost children a year ago on that terrible day have joined the organization, dedicating themselves to doing whatever they could to see that no other parent has to experience that sadness or lost.

On this first anniversary, we felt it would be appropriate to focus the conversation on the primary objective of The Sandy Hook Promise: Providing for the safety of our children.

What the members of the organization discovered this past year is that before real change can be achieved in reducing gun violence, the conversation must first move away from the polarizing political debate over guns.

Much in the same a way that Mothers Against Drunken Driving (MADD) has brought about a cultural change in attitude, The Sandy Hook Promise is attempting to move the conversation on gun violence towards a middle ground of mutual agreement from which to build upon.

Looking at emerging technology -- much the same way the auto industry and safety groups used advances in technology to build safer automobiles -- The Sandy Hook Promise created a Smart Tech Foundation to encourage development of better gun safety products.

And last month, the organization launched its “Parent Together” initiative, a national grassroots campaign to educate and empower concerned parents -- regardless of political beliefs -- to work together in reducing gun violence at home within their own communities.

We speak of the importance and the need to learn from tragedies so that we might create a better world in which we live, and prevent horrific incidents like what happened a year ago from being repeated.

The Sandy Hook Promise is committed to achieving that by building upon our shared belief that protecting our children is the priority.